Cliff Palace Tour - Mesa Verde Park

Today we had an 11:00 Cliff Palace Tour in Mesa Verde. We got there early and were looking around when guess who we ran into???? Our bicycling friend, Herzl! He was on the 10:30 Cliff Palace tour. Herzl is heading down the ladder to begin the tour. It was nice to see him again.

While we were waiting for the tour to begin, we were able to look below and see the cliff dwelling that we were going to be touring. The Cliff Palace is the largest dwelling in the area of 33 dwellings. There are 25 living rooms in the Palace! One clan of 10-15 would occupy each dwelling. One reason this dwelling might be so large is that other cliff dwellers may store supplies there also. They grew corn, beans and squash on the mesa above while building the dwelling below. They had at least 6 months of winter so they had to grow as much of their crops as they could to store for food for the winter. They also weaved their baskets, made their pottery and turkey feather blankets.

Pete, our guide arrived, and after introducing Flat Stanley our tour began. We learned a lot of things about the life of the Pueblo Indians that lived in the cliff dwellings and the area. 60% of them lived on the mesas while only 40% lived in the cliffs. It was a very interesting tour! It is hard to imagine how hard they had to work to not just to survive but to thrive (as our guide told us)! Heck, it was hard enough for us to walk up steps and ladders through the rocks at 7000 feet, they have to climb up and down the rocks daily!

For those of you who don't know who Flat Stanley is, kids in the 3rd or 4th grade read a book about him and then make a paper "Stanley" and mail him to friends, family or people all over the world. They take Flat Stanley places and take pictures and then they make a report as to where they have been with Flat Stanley! We were in Portugal at the walled city of Los Obidos and a grandparent had a life size Flat Stanley with him!

Seeing amazing cliff dwellings..."Ain't Life Grand!"